What, you may ask, am I doing posting a picture of a room? Well, my dear little ones, this is more than just a room - it is THE room. What is 'THE ROOM'? It is my 'man-cave' (for those don't understand that phrase - please read men are from mars and women are from venus - it will explain it all). No, actually this is a picture of my craft room (or scrapbooking room) and it has become my sancutary.
Let me explain - when we moved into our house in October there was a "bonus room" over the garage that is suppose to be used for storage, but I wanted a room to call my very own - I mean, Dan has the garage and the river - so I needed a place to put all my stuff and not have to worry about having to clean it up when I was in the middle of a project. Well, my dear husband decided I could have the "bonus room" and he built my desk area with kitchen cabinets and a formica counter top - we bought two bookcases from Target and moved the couch that makes into a bed (just flips out) upstairs, installed curtains and blinds, and now I have a room of my own.
I just love my room - there is only one problem, well three actually. First, we have not yet installed a door at the bottom of the stairs sooooo I have to clean my counter top every day to get the dead bugs that have flown up the stairway off - it is actually better since we put the window blinds up.
Second, since this was suppose to just be used for storage, there is only one electrical plug and it is on the "L" part of the room (which you don't see in the pictures). This part of the room IS, in fact, being used for storage and we have installed floor to ceiling drapes to hide all that from the pretty part of the room. To solve the power issue, we have run a heavy duty extension cord around the perimeter of the room so I can have my lap top computer and printer along other electrical equipment. Which brings us to problem number three - and it's a biggie - at least it is to me.
You see, once again, since my lovely room was not intended to be used as a real room it is NOT air conditioned. That is a MAJOR problem in Florida. My wonderful husband tells me that we will install a small air conditioner after we solve problem number 1 (the door) and problem number 2 (the power). (Which will lead to problem number 4 - we aren't suppose to have window air conditioner units in our development, so we will have to come up with a way to disguise it, in the meantime don't tell anyone what we are planning!)
I have installed a window fan that pulls hot air OUT of the room and have a stand fan that blows air onto me. This also creates a problem, as the fan blows the pictures, paper, and such that I am trying to work on, but without the fan, I can not STAND to be up there. I have learned to try and block the air when working or at least have something I can weigh the pictures and such down as I manipulate them on the page that I'm working on . I keep telling myself that this has to be good for my diet - I should be able to sweat at least 10 pounds off every day.
This is an example of some of the work that I have done this week - This is a picture of my mom and dad on their wedding day- April 12, 1947. I'm working on some really old pictures that I have first (me growing up, my parents and grandparents when they were young) - then I will move forward to the more current stuff. I love to scrapbook and I have made both my daughters scrapbooks of their childhood (but I don't have any scrapbooks for myself). So that is my goal with this room - I try to work for an hour or two every day - but that usually leads to four or five as anyone who scrapbooks understands. Sometimes Dan comes out and looks up the stairway and asks me IF I'm going to do anything for supper - that's how involved I get.
I'm happy with my room and enjoy spending time up in my little piece of heaven, but I sure do wish I had air conditioning!
Until next time America!
P.S. A personal message to my daughter - congratulations on your win- I sure hope we know what we are doing.
